The First (Disappointing) Brinsea Hatch.

 

Hatch Day is always exciting.  But sometimes it is also a bit disappointing.

Remember the new Brinsea we were so excited about?

We set 45 eggs in that baby.  At lockdown (day 14) we “candled” the eggs (we shine a special light over it in a dark room and see if it is developing) and discarded 8 which were clearly not fertile, leaving a whopping 37 eggs, an 82% fertility rate (not bad at all).

A good hatch is 70% which would have given us 25-26 new babies.

The hatch started late on day 16.  By day 18 we had 14 hatched and at least 2 dead-pipped.

That’s just under a 38% hatch rate from the fertile eggs.  Talk about disappointment!  Other than one time a few years ago (pre-Quail University) when we had 0 hatch, this is the worst we have ever had.

We moved the 14 out to the large brooder and left the unhatched eggs in to see if there might be some late hatches.

Here are some variables we are going to change:

1.      While we are collecting eggs to hatch over the next 5 days, we will turn the incubator on, place 4-5 Govee thermometer/hygrometers in it, and watch to see if we have cold spots.  If so (and I imagine we do), we will be sure to avoid those areas.

2.      We did what is called a “wet-hatch” this time, keeping the temperature at 99.5 and the humidity around 45% until lock-down.  In the past, we have used the “dry-hatch” method, keeping the temperature up to 100.5 and the humidity down to 25%.  I think we will go back to this dry-hatch method, since it has been so successful for us in the past.

3.      Brinsea has a daily cool-down feature to attempt to mimic a mother bird getting off the nest once daily for 15-30 minutes.  We will eliminate this in the next hatch.  Let’s be honest, the chickens we have had in the past did not get off the nest every day but closer to once a week, if at all.

I don’t usually like changing more than one variable at a time, but a hatch rate of less than 50% calls for desperate measures!  We have some potential customers wanting birds soon and we need to get our production up and running.

I am reminded about when not to count my chicks.

In the meantime, when I get frustrated, there’s always this little comforter.

 

My Pippin.